


Keith Month Prompts 2018

by greenteafiend



Series: Tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18324827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenteafiend/pseuds/greenteafiend
Summary: Various whumpy prompts from Keith month 2018.





	1. Garrison

“ _ Keith!? _ ” exclaimed Shiro, staring down at the young boy in shock. There was an ugly bruise blooming across Keith’s cheek, and blood was dripping down his chin from a split lip.

Someone had hit him. Someone had hit him more than once. 

“Hi, Shiro” he said nonchalantly.

“What happened to you?!” Shiro cried, reaching out to take Keith’s arm, intending to usher him down to the infirmary, but Keith hissed in pain and jerked away from his touch. 

Shiro noticed too late that Keith’s arm was hanging limply at his side, held gingerly by his other. 

“N-nothing,” Keith stuttered quickly, failing to meet Shiro’s eye. 

Shiro’s face twisted into a fierce scowl.

“It’s  _ not _ nothing, we need to get you medical attention, and you need to tell me who did this to you,” he said.

“I  _ can’t, _ ” said Keith stubbornly.

“You  _ can _ , let me  _ help _ you, Keith--” 

“No!” Keith snapped, finally looking straight at Shiro. His eyes were wet, and he blinked furiously in an attempt to prevent them from spilling over. A  _ vain  _ attempt, because they dripped down his face anyway.

“Y-you heard what Iverson said last time,” said Keith gruffly, scrubbing his good arm over his eyes. 

“A-anymore fights a-and I have to  _ leave _ the Garrison. He won’t believe I didn't start it,  _ no one _ ever does, but I don’t want to go back to the group home, I don’t want to leave,  _ please, _ Shiro—” The more Keith talked, the higher and more panicked his voice became, and when he begged Shiro ‘ _ please, _ ’ with tears sliding down his face, he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Keith, look at me,” Shiro urged, placing his hands carefully on Keith’s shoulders.

“ _ I _ believe you. I’ll  _ always _ believe you,” he said solemnly. 

Keith started up at him with those devastating puppy dog eyes, tears clinging to his lashes, and the fear shining in them broke Shiro’s heart. 

“You don’t have to tell me what happened if you don’t want to, but you do have to let me patch you up,” said Shiro, making an effort to gentle his tone.

“Alright,” replied Keith quietly.

He let Shiro lead him away with a bracing hand between his shoulder blades.  


	2. Fire

Keith was okay with fire when he was safely sequestered inside of the Red lion, with Red’s presence wrapped around his mind like a fire-retardent blanket, and the ability control where fire erupted with a flick of his wrist. 

Outside of his lion however… well, he wouldn’t go as far as to say that he had  _ pyrophobia _ . He simply had a healthy level of respect for fire, and comported himself with the appropriate level of vigilance and caution fire warranted. 

So naturally, when he needed to jump throw a flaming loop of fire to complete the alien ceremony that would win Voltron a huge ally, he  _ froze _ . 

Shiro had been missing for a month, meaning that there was no pilot for the Black Lion, and therefore they couldn’t even _ show _ potential allies Voltron, so it had been a miracle that the Anaians had accepted the terms of their treaty on the proviso that they complete the ceremony. 

The ceremony that Keith was currently screwing up by refusing to move a muscle.

“Keith is the Red Paladin, the guardian of _ fire _ is he not?” said one of the delegates awkwardly.

“ _ Keith _ ,” hissed Lance, elbowing him in the ribs. 

“ _ No _ ,” said Keith faintly. His heart was thudding loudly in his ears, and his vision narrowed down to the dancing flames in front of him. Where they reaching for him? He could feel their heat, that meant he was too close— 

“I-I don’t want— _ no _ ,” he stuttered, blindly backing away.

“What he means is-” Lance’s hands clamped down on his shoulders, stopping him from skittering away like a wind-up toy, “- _ I’ll _ be doing this part.” 

“Keith is meant to do this part,” hissed Allura.

“You are the Guardian of Water, you already—”

Lance pushed Keith behind him, and cut of the Anaian dignitary, loud and dazzling. 

“Anything you were gonna get him to do, I can do a  _ hundred _ times better,” he bragged.

While the Anaians muttered amongst themselves, Coran clamped as arm around Keith’s shoulders and gently led him away.

“Come on, Number 4. Let’s go see Red.”

He didn’t realize that he was crying until Coran had him sit in the pilot seat, and handed him a tissue. 

With the fire gone, and his heartrate returning to normal, shame pooled in Keith’s gut, thick and heavy. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, wiping at his eyes roughly. 

“It’s quite alright, lad,” replied Coran, as kindly as ever.  “Do you want to tell me what happened back there?” he pressed gently. 

It took Keith a moment to gather his thoughts.

“My dad died in a fire,” he said shortly, fresh tears springing to his eyes. 

Coran made a sympathetic tutting sound, and then he opened his arms, a wordless invitation.

Keith accepted.  

 


	3. Kerberos

The banging was loud and insistent; whoever was at Adam’s door was determined to see him.

Adam turned his head to look at the time on his alarm clock. As he expected, it was late enough that the announcement would have been made already, the world knew what had happened to the Kerberos Mission… to Takashi. 

Iverson had informed him personally the day before as a professional courtesy, and it had taken every shred of self control he possessed to nod stiffly, and excuse himself so he could stumble back to his quarters and fall apart in private. He’d been lost in a fog of disbelief and regret since then. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about the last argument they’d had before Takashi left. 

He was a fool, and he wished he could take back every harsh, unforgiving thing he’d said. He wished that the last words he’d said to Takashi had been something, _ anything _ , other than ‘ _ don’t expect me to be here when you get back _ ,’ but he couldn’t change it now. 

It was too late. 

He’d never get to say anything to Takashi ever again because Takashi was  _ dead _ , frozen in the outer reaches of the solar system, where he would remain forever.  

The person at the door stopped knocking.

Good. Adam didn’t want to see anyone, whoever they were they should have known better than to approach him now. He wasn’t fit for company. 

It turned out that they’d only stopped knocking because they decided they were going to yell.

“Adam!  _ Adam! _ ” the voice was young and _ broken.  _

Oh god.  _ Keith.  _

It hadn’t even occurred to Adam to consider how Keith might take the news, the poor boy  _ adored  _ Takashi. He adored him so fiercely that Adam had jokingly likened Keith to a loyal stray on more than one occasion. Keith shouldn’t have had to find out what happened from the fucking _ news  _ broadcast. 

Adam lurched to his feet, head going fuzzy as the blood rushing back to his body after spending so much time lying down, inactive. 

He pressed the button to let the door slide open, revealing Keith on the other side. 

Keith looked exactly how Adam felt. _ Anguished _ . 

His eyes were red, and there were tears flowing freely down his cheeks. His chest was heaving with emotion, his bottom lip looked like he’d tried to chew a hole through it, and Adam could see his fist shaking where it was raised, poised as if to continue knocking. 

“They’re wrong,” Keith blurted. 

Adam’s eyes closed of their own volition, and he felt the beginnings of a headache building behind his temples. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Adam, they’re  _ wrong _ . They  _ must  _ be. Shiro is the best pilot at the Garrison, he wouldn’t make a mistake—” Keith’s voice was shook with conviction. 

He was so terribly young and naive; even the best pilots could make life-ending mistakes. Adam opened his eyes. 

“Keith, he  _ was _ the best pilot,” he said, as gently as he was able to. Keith’s face fell, and fresh tears filled his eyes.  

“You… you  _ believe  _ them?” Keith whispered, incredulous the betrayed. “But-but you  _ love  _ him.”

His love wasn’t enough to keep Takashi here with him, safe and alive. 

“I love him,” Adam echoed, he’d probably _ always  _ love him. “But he’s  _ gone. _ ”

Keith shook his head, and his expression turned mulish.

“You’re  _ wrong _ ,” he spat, and then he turned on his heel and marched away, every line of his body stiff and angry.  

Adam sighed, surreptitiously wiping his own eyes with his sleeve. 

Keith really was like a loyal stray.   
  
  
  



	4. Naxela

“Good job, Keith.” 

_ Good, job Keith. _

_ Good, job Keith. _

_ Good, job Keith. _

Those three words reverberated through his skull, and stabbed his heart. 

“It wasn’t me,” he replied numbly, barely feeling the words pass his lips. 

It should have been him, but there he was, still alive. 

He didn’t feel alive. 

Even though he was entirely unhurt, it felt like his spirit had collided with that barrier and burnt away into the nothingness of space. All that was left was a shell. 

He didn’t realise that he’d automatically flown to the Red Hangar of the castle until he registered Lance standing in front of his parked fighter, waving at him with both arms.  

“You looked like you were zoning out, c’mon, space cadet. They’re letting Prince Lotor into the castle,” said Lance the minute his feet hit the ground. 

Lance started to walk away, clearly intending for Keith to fall into step with him, but it was as if Keith was surrounded by sticky molasses, and his body refused to move.  

“Keith?” said Lance, confusion and concern creeping into his expression. 

“ _ Keith! _ ”

Both of them jolted in shock at the sound of a new voice. It was accompanied by the pounding footsteps of owner as they hurtled closer. 

It was Matt. 

“Keith,” Matt repeated, eyes wild with worry. He slowed his pace as he neared them, panting with exertion and pushing his sweaty hair out of his face impatiently. 

“You tried to—” Matt cut himself, frowning deeply.

“Keith tried to  _ what-? _ ” asked Lance. 

Matt ignored Lance in favor of setting a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

His eyes looked just like Pidge’s. Sharp, like he could see right through him. 

Keith found himself shaking his head.

Matt and Lance blurred before him and the weight of what he’d nearly done finally hit him.

“N-no,” he whispered.  


	5. Orphan

 

When Keith was very very young, too young to remember, his dad was followed home by an old stray dog. Being a kind-hearted man, gentle and prone to taking in broken things to try and fix them, he’d let the old dog stay. 

By the time Keith was old enough to form memories, the dog was  _ ancient.  _ He couldn’t play fetch, and walking to the letterbox and back fatigued him so much he’d lay down panting on the cracked linoleum of their cool kitchen floor.  

He slobbered, he shed hair like crazy, and he never didn’t smell at least  _ slightly _ awful, but Keith loved him fiercely all the same, until the day he died. 

Keith’s dad wasn’t one to prevaricate, or tell big lies to small children about hard truths, and so Keith grasped the permanence of death at a very young age.  

_ Did he go where mom went, dad? _

_ No, son. I’m sorry. He died. _

_ What does that mean? _

_ He’s gone forever.  _

Keith had started to cry, but his dad’s arms around him had been safe and warm and comforting.  

_ It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to miss him. Anything you feel is okay, Keith. One day you’ll be able to think about the good times, and it’ll make you happy instead of sad.    _

And so, young and small as he was, Keith had grieved for his dog.   
  


When his dad was gone forever too, those words were cold comfort. 

It wasn’t the same when there was no one left hold him. 

  
  



	6. Trials of Marmora

  
  


It wasn’t easy for Kolivan to judge the age of aliens, and to him, all the human paladins looked approximately the same age.

He’d  _ assumed _ , a foolish assumption in hindsight, that they were fully mature. It had never occurred to him that a Lion of Voltron might choose a _ child _ as it’s pilot.

If he’d known, he never would have let the boy participate in the Trials of Marmora. If they’d realized, the Blades that had tested him would have refused to fight him, for there was no honor in harming children. 

Thinking about the state they had left the boy in made Kolivan sick to his stomach, but there was nothing to be done now; Keith had awakened the Blade despite his immaturity. 

He was a Blade. He was a Paladin. 

Kolivan hoped he survived. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/).


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